La Tristesse Durere (Scream to a Sigh) - Manic Street Preachers
Life Becoming a Landslide - Manic Street Preachers
I'm putting these two songs together because I just couldn't decide which one of these two Manics songs to highlight, and feel justified in pairing them, as they are on the same side of the same album - Track 3 and Track 5 of the Manics' second album, 'Gold Against the Soul', one of their least critically lauded long players.
'Gold Against the Soul' was/is seen as a bit corporate, a bit over-produced, a bit unfocused. The band themselves feel that a little themselves, I think. Their next album, 'The Holy Bible' is by and large seen as their masterpiece, one of the most brutal and visceral expositions of the human condition ever recorded.
I prefer 'Gold Against the Soul', or rather I love it more. Or rather, I love a few of the songs on it more. Mainly these two - 'La Tristesse' is, in 2013, my favourite Manics song, 'Life Becoming a Landslide' was the Manics song that moved me most.
Now, what's the white elephant? There could be a few, but I'm going to guess it's that I'm talking with love and admiration about a band some of you readers might loathe. I've met plenty of music lovers, with whom I've otherwise been reasonably like-minded, who loathe the Manics, or the Ma-ha-nic Stre-e-et Pre-eache-hers as they call them (in imitation of the sometimes tortured attempts by singer James Dean Bradfield to fit the words written by either Nicky Wire or Richey Edwards into his tune). People who prefer their music more artful, less shouty, more exquisite, less Manicky. And it's true that the Manics' hits have been generally pretty bombastic, pretty preachy - well, you love it or hate it. If you love it, like I do, you love it in a personal, affectionate, protective way. You put up with the shit, you really really care. So, sorry if you hate the Manics. I think it's your loss, but I do understand.
'La Tristesse Durere' takes its title from the last words of Vincent Van Gogh, but otherwise doesn't have anything to do with him. It was my first significant encounter with the Manics, seeing them perform it on a late night Channel 4 show called 'Naked City' (whose hosts, bizarrely, were Caitlin Moran and Johnny Vaughan), and I loved this song instantly. 20 years on, I still do. It rocks, has a great riff, wonderful sloganeering lyrics "I sold my medal, it pays a bill, it sells at market stalls, parades Milan catwalks" and introduced me to the voice of James Dean Bradfield. Back then, to my chagrin, I still loved Queen, so I'd like to think James was one of the factors that moved me on from Queen - controversial, but to me, he's the singer Freddie Mercury could have been if he'd really given it a bit of welly! And he's rarely better than on 'La Tristesse Durere' - I will never get enough of him singing "I see liberals. I am just a fashion accessory".
James Dean Bradfield (his real name, it was either that or Clint Eastwood Bradfield apparently) is my favourite Manic by far. Indeed he's one of my favourite people in all rock'n'roll. A genuine hero in an unheroic age. He's the singer but not the lyricist, he's the guy that had to fit words that were sometimes clunky, sometimes pompous, sometimes verbose, sometimes utterly horribly harrowing, to his tunes and his musical pallette. Sure, he didn't always do it successfully, but believe me, the Manics have a lot of brilliant, beautiful songs and a wide frame of musical references, through punk and glam and post-rock, powerpop, stadium rock and even Bacharachy chamber-pop.
He's just, on the one hand, a pleasant little fellow from Wales who talks too fast and says "kind of" a lot, but has had to be the tragic rock god mouthpiece for his bandmates Nicky Wire, sloganeering and political, and, until 1995, Richey Edwards, who I'm not going to write about*, because what's the point, but suffice to say he wrote a lot of words that came from a dark place.
* except if you happen not to know, here you go with the basic info on Richey James Edwards.
Of the Manics, James Dean Bradfield is the one you feel would be the gritty midfielder tracking back, would save innocent people's lives in a warzone, would cover for you and take the rap, would let you copy his homework, would forgive you any discretion with barely a harsh word. He's probably the third most famous member of the Manics (the fourth is the drummer, his cousin Sean Moore), which is probably exactly how he likes it. But without him, they'd have been absolutely nothing.
Until their sixth album, 'Know Your Enemy' (a generally terrible album) he never contributed a lyric. He sang the words of his bandmates which were dramatic, detailed, made tragedy from the everyday, must have ripped his head to pieces (try, for example, 'Yes'). And he wrote the lyrics to a song called 'Ocean Spray' for that album, which is about the great grief that any human being could go through, namely watching his mother die of cancer. And he was able to gently reduce this to a bathetic, banal line "Oh, please stay awake and we can drink some Ocean Spray" [Cranberry juice was apparently good for his mother so they used to drink it together in hospital] - it's not a great lyric, but it's beautiful in its own way in saying everything needed about the disparate personalities in the Manics, the sheer heaviness of touch they traded in, which was entirely at odds with what his own lyrical style would have been, which was to make light of tragedy.
Anyway, enough JDB-love. Though he's also to the fore on 'Life Becoming a Landslide' which is, as a song, what the title suggests it is. It's a very pretty tune, with some heavy rock and also some strings, with some fairly devastating lyrics, which exemplify Richey Edwards' state of mind at that time. And I loved it particularly because I suppose my hearing it coincided with a time when I felt my life was becoming a bit of a landslide. Which, thankfully, it never did, but, for me, listening to the Manics is a very helpful reminder to me of the reality of teen angst, that when you felt your life was really bad, even though you might look back on it with perspective and laugh, your feelings were real, and although it never got really bad for you, you were lucky to escape. I know I'm reducing the depth of the human experience to truisms right now, and I apologise for that, but I expect we've all had periods of life when we've listened to really doomy music of various sorts and it's really struck a chord with us and spoken to us. Music which is open-hearted and desperate can speak to anyone at some point.
For me, these are two beautiful songs - La Tristesse Durere stands the test of time in a way that Life Becoming a Landslide doesn't quite, but I'm not going to be ashamed of loving the Manics. They've done some crap albums, some crap songs, laughable even, but they have been '4 Real' and they make their fans really feel something. They're still going and still popular and they deserve to be.
I look back at this post and see that I've ranted on in unusually long paragraphs of dense text, which is fitting really for the Manics, bless'em.
you've written a lot of thought-provoking material here, but what sticks with me is the utter absurdity of naming your child after an especially beautiful man. JDB is no slouch in the success and fame department, and he's not even bad looking, but it's really very silly thinking his parents wanted him somehow to be James Dean.
ReplyDeleteI like the Manics, as you know, and perhaps in particular their most corporate work. But I also agree that La Tristessa Durera reamins their finest work.
I was named after David Beckham. Or was it David Cassidy. Or David Gower. Can't remember. But, yes, i agree, no name should be a hostage to fortune, not even Jermaine Jackson's son Jermajesty.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think so. I love some of their gentler numbers like 'Black Dog on My Shoulder', I also love it when they rock fearsomely, I think their first 5 albums all have strong moments, thev next two were pretty dreadful, but then they picked up again, which is a good effort. If you don't know the b-side 'Prologue to History', that's a shockingly enjoyable song.